Japanese anti-atomic weapons organization Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded this Friday (11) to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, which brings together survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The group received the award “for its efforts in favor of a world without nuclear weapons and for having demonstrated, through testimonies, that nuclear weapons should never be used again”, said the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes.

Nihon Hidankyo was founded in 1956, in response to the American attacks with atomic bombs at the end of the Second World War, in August 1945. The organization is divided between pressure for control of nuclear arsenals and representing interests and memory that of the Hibakusha — the survivors of the only nuclear attacks ever carried out.

“I never dreamed this could happen,” said Nihon Hidankyo co-president Tomoyuki Mimaki, a survivor of the atomic bombings. “Please, [decidam] abolish nuclear weapons while we are alive. This is the wish of 114 thousand hibakusha.”